I loved this Julienned Zucchini Mock Spaghetti with Quick Sausage, Tomato, and Basil Sauce; don't think of Zucchini Spaghetti as a replacement for pasta, think of it as a delicious zucchini dish! And this tasty recipe is low-carb, gluten-free, and South Beach Diet friendly.

(For Phase One Fridays I highlight Phase One recipes from the past that have been my personal favorites. I made this Julienned Zucchini Mock Spaghetti with Quick Sausage, Tomato, and Basil Sauce over and over after I tried it last summer.)

Have you ever used a Julienne Cutter or a Mandoline Slicerto cut zucchini into thin "spaghetti-like" strands and then served it like pasta? I have both those handy cooking tools and I certainly have an abundance of zucchini every summer, but I just tried doing that for the first time this week when I made this Julienned Zucchini Mock Spaghetti with Quick Sausage, Tomato, and Basil Sauce. I ate my zucchini spaghetti with a very tasty quick sauce made from spicy hot Italian sausage, tomatoes, and lots of chopped basil, parsley, and oregano, and completely enjoyed it for a quick dinner.

It also happened to be a dinner that was Phase One, Gluten-Free, and Sugar-Free if anyone is thinking about those things, and it could easily have been meatless with a slightly different sauce option. For example, I think this zucchini spaghetti would make a delicious vehicle for delivering pesto to your mouth! I do recommend thinking of this as another delicious way to cook zucchini and not as a replacement for pasta, but if you like zucchini and the summer duo of tomatoes and basil, I think you'll enjoy this dish.

I always buy turkey Italian sausage and squeeze it out of the links for a recipe like this, so I was excited to find this Italian seasoned ground turkey. I added a little hot pepper flakes to make it spicier, but you could skip that if you want it mild. (And South Beach Diet food police, notice there's only 7% fat in this!)

Heat a little olive oil in a heavy frying pan and brown the sausage.

Then push the sausage over to the side, add a couple teaspoons more olive oil to that spot, and saute a little minced garlic and a few hot pepper flakes. (Someday I'll show you the handy garlic mincer my friend Margarethe gave me that minced the garlic so neatly like that!)

Then add 1 can petite dice tomatoes or 2 cups diced fresh tomatoes plus about 1/4 cup water, and some ground fennel. (If you don't have fresh herbs you could add dried basil, parsley, and oregano at this point, but I'd use fresh if you can.)

When nearly all the water has simmered away, add the fresh herbs and simmer about 5 minutes more.

In a very large heavy frying pan heat about 1 T olive oil (depending on your pan), add a few garlic cloves and cook until you start to smell garlic (to season the oil). Then discard the garlic.

Immediately add the strands of zucchini and cook over high heat, turning over a few times, just until the spaghetti is hot. This was only about 2 minutes for me in a cast-iron pan. Season the "spaghetti" to taste with salt and fresh-ground black pepper.

Then add the sauce and gently combine. Serve hot, with freshly grated Parmesan cheese if desired.

If anyone is interested, I found several recipes on the web that advised salting the zucchini and letting it drain to remove some of the liquid. I tried that the first time, but I liked the zucchini much better when it hadn't been salted and drained.

Julienned Zucchini "Spaghetti" with Quick Sausage, Tomato, and Basil Sauce
(Makes 2-4 servings, recipe created by Kalyn with inspiration from many sources.)

Heat about 1 T olive oil in a heavy frying pan, then add turkey sausage (squeezed out of the links if needed) and use a turner to break the sausage apart and cook until it's lightly browned, about 5 minutes. When the sausage is browned, push it over to the side and add 2 tsp. olive oil, 3 cloves of minced garlic, and hot pepper flakes if using. Let them cook about a minute, then mix the garlic into the sausage and add the tomatoes, water, and ground fennel (and dried herbs if using.) Turn heat down to low and let the sauce simmer while you prep other ingredients.

Use a Julienne Cutter or Mandoline slicer to cut the spaghetti into long strands. Cut off the ends, wash and dry the zucchini, and then cut into julienne strands. You can also do this with a knife if you're patient. (After I posted this I shared Three Ways to Make Noodles from Zucchini or Other Vegetables. That post might be helpful. Now that I have a Spiralizer, I would definitely prefer that.) Wash and dry the herbs and finely chop.

In about 15 minutes, or when the water has mostly cooked out of the sauce, stir in the chopped herbs and let sauce simmer about 5 minutes more. Heat about 1 T olive oil over high heat in a very large frying pan, add 3 whole garlic cloves and saute until you can start to smell garlic, then remove and discard the garlic. Immediately add the zucchini strands to the hot pan and cook stirring a few times just until the zucchini is heated through, about 2 minutes. Season the cooked zucchini with salt and fresh ground black pepper to taste. Add the sauce to the zucchini and gently combine. Serve hot, with freshly grated Parmesan cheese if desired.

Using Dried Herbs:

You can certainly make this sauce with dried herbs, although I think fresh herbs, especially fresh basil, really add a lot of flavor here. If you only have dried herbs, I'd add them when you add the tomatoes and fennel and add a couple of tablespoons more water. I would use about 1 T dried basil, 1 tsp. dried parsley, and 1/2 tsp. dried oregano. You can of course use a combination of fresh and dried herbs as well, just add the dried herbs at the beginning and the fresh ones at the end.

If it's made with low-fat turkey Italian sausage, everything about this zucchini dish would be a great choice for any phase of the South Beach Diet. Zucchini is a very low-carb vegetable, so go ahead and eat as much of this as you'd like! This recipe is also great for other low-carb eating plans, some of which might prefer higher-fat sausage.

I chose the South Beach Diet to manage my weight partly so I wouldn't have to count calories, carbs, points, or fat grams, but if you want nutritional information for a recipe, I recommend entering the recipe into Calorie Count, which will calculate it for you. Or if you're a member of Yummly, you can use the Yum button on my site to save the recipe and see the nutritional information there.

More Interesting Ideas for Cooking Zucchini:
(Recipes from other blogs not always South Beach Diet friendly; check ingredients.)

(Want even more recipes? I find these recipes from other blogs using Food Blog Search.)

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Kalyn, that looks totally delicious! I love how you advise folks not to consider this recipe a replacement for pasta, but a zucchini dish worthy on its own merit. :-) That's so true of so many foods and recipes. We just need to be open to new forms of goodness. ;-)

I just wanted to mention that in the event you can't find the seasoned ground turkey meat you can cut the casing off the sausage and just pull it right off instead of squeezing it out. I'm sure you know this but for someone who may not have, I do it all the time with any kind of sausage :)

This looks delicious! I just started back on South Beach diet this week, and as an Italian girl, I'm missing my pasta. What a perfect alternative! I guess you could also use spaghetti squash as well. Can't wait to try it!

WOW this looks AWESOME!! I will defiantly be trying this! My kids love pasta and I am trying to get them away from it so maybe this will be a good trick for them!! They liked spaghetti squash so I would imagine they will like this too. Thank you!

Love those zucchini "noodles!" I have a spiral slicer that makes long veggie noodles, and I tried it on zucchini last summer. I made a raw zucchini noodle salad, but I think I would have preferred it cooked. I'll have to give it try - your pasta looks so good.

Kalyn - we made this last night using fresh tomatoes and zucchini from our garden and it was FANTASTIC. I will definately be making this again. I even went out and bought a julienne slicer to use and luv it - definately a useful tool for the kitchen. Thanks for the great recipe.

I'm just delighted that I'm introducing so many people to this idea (and even getting you guys to buy one of those nifty julienne peelers!) And I do agree that you could use spaghetti squash instead of zucchini for the "noodles" as well.

I've been meaning to try zucchini this way. I often will make a pasta sauce and put it over steamed broccoli or other veggies instead of pasta but I've never cut the zucchini this way. I just stuck it on the menu plan for next month! (Yes, I'm odd, I plan WAY ahead on meals!)

Thanks so much for the lead on the garlic mincer, Kalyn. We took a drive (30 miles) to our nearest Williams & Sonoma but they didn't have one in stock so they ordered it for me - yay, no shipping charges. The larger size looks great for diced veggies too.

I made this recipe for dinner last night with the zucchini, cherry tomatoes and parsley from my CSA bag, as well as basil and oregano from my yard. It was delicious! The Italian turkey sausage really cranks up the flavor. I think that will be my go-to sausage from now on. Who needs the fat from pork when you get just as much flavor from turkey? Thanks so much for sharing this recipe!

I just made this dish and it is absolutely wonderful! I never knew you could make zucchini noodles and as I didn't have a julliene slicer I used my peeler and then cut the peelings into long slices with a sharp knife. The work was well worth the pay-off. I also used some Aidells sausage (sliced) as I didn't have any turkey sausage on hand. I will be keeping this recipe in my file for future dishes! THANK You!

I got a julienne peeler recently and love the zucchini "pasta" that it makes. It's quick and easy, easier than the real stuff and I love the way to adapts to whatever you put on it, kind of like real pasta.

Didn't know about that Jennie-O had an Italian seasoned ground turkey. I'll have to look for it next time.

one can cut the noodles with a knife and you'll get 'linguini'. First, slice the sides of the veg for square. . cut the ends, so the 'noodles' are all the same length and cook the scraps and uncooperative pieces separate for a different plate.

My husband found the julienne cutter at macy's in the kitchen stuff area. it's SO cool, definitely my new favorite kitchen tool!! I can't wait to discover other things to do with it. I made this recipe the other night and it was TO DIE FOR awesomeness!!!! Super easy too - I know the julienne cutter thing might scare you, but it was SO easy, the sauce is insanely yummy!! If you're scared to do SBD because you can't give up your spaghetti, trust me, you'll never look back - incredible recipe, Kalyn!!! thank you again!

This was absolutely delicious! I ordered the julienne peeler you mentioned off Amazon and couldn't wait for it to get here to try this recipe. This dish had so much flavor with such simple ingredients, and this peeler is going to be my new favorite toy!

I made this tonight for dinner. When I saw the recipe I saw Spaghetti Sauce and Squash and didn't read the ingredients, automatically assumed spaghetti squash. Have to say my husband and I absolutely loved it, felt like we couldn't get enough of it. Only thing we found is it isn't super filling, but we found it very satisfying... I highly recommend spaghetti squash - gave it a spaghetti feel... and much easier than julienne'ing zucchini... we microwaved a 3.5 lb squash for 7 mins (2 min/pound) to soften the rhinde, then cut in half and cooked in the oven at 375 for 45 mins, then removed the seeds and used a fork and peeled the squash "noodles" out... super easy cuz while the squash was cooking, I fixed the sauce. When the squash was done, dinner was ready! :) AMAZING!!!! Highly recommended, and definitely a doer once again!

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